Bitcoin serves the purposes of criminal rings, report says

24 August 2017

According to the report published this week by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), organized crime is thriving in the country among other things thanks to online banking and digital currencies, which facilitate money laundering for crime rings. The commission estimated that money laundering as well as other criminal deeds involving financial schemes come at a high cost for the nation, as high as $28.43 billion annually.

The criminal intelligence regulator is expressing its particular concern over ecommerce and bitcoin exchanges, as they serve malevolent purposes of perpetrators given insufficient transparency featuring the transactions and encrypted data helping criminals conceal their actions and evade tax control.

Michael Keenan, Australian Justice Minister, underlined that bitcoin considering its ability to be traded anonymously and its cash-like properties, is currently sold on most major international exchanges.

Last week an announcement was made that Australian law makers will be applying amendments to the national legislation regulating anti-money laundering policies to expand their scope of application to include cryptocurrencies for the first time in the country after the latest affray around the nation’s largest financial institution, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) that was found to be in breach of the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation.